Apparently plenty of drama unfolded in the training room for Anderson Silva prior to his bout with Nick Diaz at UFC 183 on Saturday.
Not only did the longtime former middleweight champ knock out one of his training partners prior to his comeback fight, he also got knocked out himself.
Per a report by MMAFighting.com's Guilherme Cruz, The Spider confirmed on Thursday that a kick to the face from training partner Khalil Rountree rendered him unconscious during his training for Diaz.
"Yeah. Khalil [Rountree] gave me a kick in the face. Boom," said Silva.
Rountree, a light heavyweight who turned pro last summer after racking up a 6-0 amateur record (four knockouts and one submission), weighed in on his alleged knockout of Silva.
"We train hard to guarantee we’re going to win, and things happen during training. No big deal," said Rountree, who knocked out Blake Troop in just 39 seconds to improve to 2-0 as a pro at RFA 21 in December. "I know a lot of people get knocked out in training and simply don’t say, but he’s an honest guy. It happened in training but not in the fight, so it doesn’t matter."
In a report per Bloody Elbow's Karim Zidan, Silva talked bluntly about Rountree's potential: "Khalil is the next champion at 185."
Prior to returning to Los Angeles for his final preparations for Diaz, Silva knocked out Douglas Moura with a knee and follow-up punches during a sparring session at Team Nogueira in Brazil on Jan. 13. Moura, a Brazilian welterweight, holds a pro record of 5-1, with four submissions and one TKO.
Silva recovered from the incident with Rountree in time to outlast Diaz in the main event of UFC 183. Silva's unanimous-decision win over Diaz marked his first time competing since breaking his left tibia and fibula in his second consecutive loss to middleweight champ Chris Weidman at UFC 168 in December 2013.
Before his back-to-back losses to Weidman, Silva won a UFC-record 16 straight fights, 11 of which were middleweight title fights.
